


And The Things Burned Into Me

by BWaves



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Post Sburb, Assault, Burning, Drug Abuse, Fisting, Human Davesprite, M/M, Masturbation, PTSD, Physical Abuse, Sadstuck, Warnings at top of chapter, bc lets face it dave has a vagina, non consensual touching of birdy bits, thats a thing that happens, this is probably going to get slowly more and more depressing as it goes, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1258942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BWaves/pseuds/BWaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't cry. You're a fucking Strider... You're...</p><p>No. No, you're not a Strider. Not anymore, at least.</p><p>No amount of touching up and covering up will make you Dave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so, not really sure what I'm doing with this story, but I am supremely bored, wanted to write a sad Post-Sburb Davesprite thing in which Bro hates him. This was the result. Read on, and tell me what you think. I may not even continue it, it really depends on how it's taken. I'll mark it as completed for the time being, but if enough people want more I will continue.
> 
> Just a heads up, there's a part where Bro bends Davesprite over a counter and, like, takes his shirt off, JSYK, no there is no rape in this chapter. I realize it looks like it's headed that way but it's definitely not. I promise.
> 
> Enjoy, and be sure to tell me what you think!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assault, and burning in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood music  
> http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/And+The+Things+Burned+Into+Me/98390534

You're not Dave. No really, you aren't. Not their Dave, at least. And they make a point of telling you. Bro hates you. Rose looks at you with fucking pity. Jade can't really look at you at all. John just... Treats you differently.

When Dave died, heroically, you might add, everyone was shocked. When they won, when everything was put into a new place, you went with it. You were the new Dave. Dave two-point-oh, as it were.

Your hair was the same color as when you were a sprite, but your skin was back to a normal color again, thank fucking god. The insignia from the necklace is permanently inked into your chest, not of your own will either, it's just there. Your eyes are bright orange, and your freckles, which once were normal like every-fucking-one-else's now have a hint of orange hue to them. You hate them.

Your nails are sharp. No matter how many times you cut them they grow back into a point. And even thought you're back to a mostly-human body you still have a god-damned bird-vagina. But no one looks at you oddly when you go out and about. The freckles and their orange-ness don't set anyone at odds. Because in this world you are normal. This world has trolls, and other sprites, and people, and you and Nannasprite get along rather coolly, since she gets going from dead to sprite to mostly human.

She's still an older lady but she doesn't act like it. Her eyes are still bright blue, and where she would normally be graying in her hair it's bright blue. She wears a silly clown hat that she feels odd taking off, and she bakes, and has but one arm. You applaud her ability to bake with one arm. That takes some serious grandma skills.

She doesn't talk to you much anymore, though. Not since you started hiding out in Dave's (the real Dave) room pretty much all the time. Leaving it terrifies you because of the way Bro (his bro) stares at you.

You constantly feel like you're one step from getting the shit kicked out of you for something you never asked for. You didn't even want to be in this world as an extra Dave, much less the only Dave. From day one, when you walked out of Dave's room and Bro saw you, he hated you. As if he just had this gut instinct that you weren't the right Dave. And you looked different to boot so you can see where the anger probably came from.

You feel this weird pain at the way he reacts to you. It's not even indifference, like the first few days, he basically treats you like you're Dave except his actions are stiff. His movements are forceful and he refuses to touch you, or even look at you. Strifes are a thing of distant memory. When you offer he glares at you until you mumble a never mind and hide out in Dave's room again.

What you've done today probably isn't going to help at all. You just want Bro to like you again. You took his money to do it, but... You hope it works. You stared at yourself in the bathroom mirror at the store for like half an hour. You looked like Dave. Like the real Dave. Red contacts? Yeah you had to search like three million places, but you found some that were perfect. Bleach for your hair and makeup to cover the orange freckles. Toss in an eyebrow pencil of the proper shade to fill in the proper color of freckles and you were good to go. You looked like yourself again.

You looked like Dave.

And you dared to say you felt like him too.

You put on the five dollar shades that match his and you almost cry at the sight. You feel comfortable in your own skin, for the first time in the years you've been back.

You dare to think that maybe Bro will like you if you keep up this appearance, grab your bag full of empty wrappers and cosmetics and leave the store, this time, you receive odd looks. Because you're definitely not the same guy who walked in there two hours ago but you look a lot like him.

When you do get back to the apartment you stand at the door and stare at it for a handful of minutes, wondering if this will work. You just don't want to piss Bro off. 

When you do finally get the guts to open it, the apartment is empty. You're disappointed. You go to the bathroom, and look at yourself in the mirror once more. You don't recognize yourself. You like it.

You hide in Dave's (your) room until you hear the front door. You double check yourself, and see that you still look like Dave, and you open the door leading into the rest of the apartment. Only a crack. You get a look at Bro, carrying a grocery bag and looking extremely chill as usual except there's a set to his shoulders that screams out to you that there's something wrong. You're not even in the room yet, so it's definitely not you. Not yet, at least.

You open the door a little more, and his head turns in your general direction, and you think he's looking at you by the way his shoulders shift again, this time to a more hostile stance. It's now or never, you think.

When you do make your way out of the door you feel slightly more uncomfortable than when you were by yourself. Your arms take a defensive stance, wringing your hands together loosely in front of your chest and your eyes are on the floor, refusing to look at him.

The silence is long, and drawn out and by the time you hear him shift toward you your wringing of your hands has begun marking you, your oddly shaped nails digging into the palms as they passed repeatedly. He doesn't go straight for you. You do manage to look up when he veers off course and goes to the bathroom instead. You don't move as you listen to him rummage around in there.

You wonder what Bro is doing when it comes to be ten minutes of him shoving and throwing and moving things in the bathroom around. A can of shaving cream flies out the bathroom door, soon it's followed by a razor, and then a tube of tooth paste. He's really digging for something.

When he finally emerges you haven't moved. His head turns to you and he closes the distance before you see that what he has in his hands is a curling iron. Which is confusing, because you haven't used that curling iron since you (Dave) were in the fourth grade play. Why is Bro grabbing it now?

When he finally reaches you you can tell this is not going to end well for you, and one painful hand grips a sensitive shoulder, hard, pulls you so quickly you don't realize you've hit the floor until you feel his weight on your back.

He pulls on your hair, and leans down, like he's scrutinizing it. He's looking for tone difference. He's looking for the bright orange. He twists your head and rips the shades off, forcing you to look at him and you know he knows they're contacts with the way he huffs and adjusts his leg to let one arm free. “Take them out.” Seeing as you're in no position to argue, you do. With one hand and no way of seeing yourself, it's a task, but eventually you get the first contact out, and he flicks it off your finger tip, pointing to your other eye. You remove this, and he does the move again.

Once the contacts are gone he rubs at your face. It's not gentle, it's violent and it burns after only a moment as he scrubs the makeup off with his fingers, going so far as to scratch his nails along your cheeks. He stares at you, your face is smudged, your eyes are watery from touching them, and your head is killing you with how he's still holding your hair and the way he's pinning one of your arms down is giving you a cramp in your shoulder.

Hind-sight is always 20-20, you think as he stands, still holding your hair and dragging you into the kitchen, and bending you over the counter. He untangles the wire for the curling iron, and points to the counter, tells you not to move. He doesn't need to add a threat to it. You know that if you don't listen it'll be worse.

He plugs in the device and his hands find you again, grabbing your shirt and tugging on it harshly until it finally comes off in more pieces that it was originally in. He tells you that you are not Dave.

Tells you that you are not HIS Dave.

He calls you a freak, and punctuates it by pressing the hot metal of the iron into the skin on your back. You barely bite back a noise, and manage to keep it down as he repeats, going down your back in what you're sure is a serious pattern, and then he repeats it on the other side. He's silent, and fuming and you're crying like a kid after the third time the iron makes contact.

You can smell the burning skin half-way through, and by the time he's finished the other side your back is numb.

He leans back. Takes a look at his work, and tosses the curling iron to the side, and you hear the plug slip out of the wall. He pressed a hand to your back, running it up your bare spine, between where you feel burns and feel his fingers hesitate only slightly at where your neck meets your shoulders. He pulls away, mumbles something along the lines of “Maybe now you won't fucking forget.” and he leaves you there.

It's once you hear the front door slam that the first real sob leaves.

You don't cry. You're a fucking Strider... You're...

No. No, you're not a Strider. Not anymore, at least.

No amount of touching up and covering up will make you Dave.

As you lie on the counter, sobbing and begging the pain to ebb away just enough for you to move you feel wrong. You feel incorrect, and you don't fit. You don't want to be here anymore. You don't want to be the Dave of this world, not like this.

It feels like hours before you bring yourself to even twitch and even that send lightning bolts of pain up your spine, makes you whimper even more. You practically crawl, at a slow pace, to Dave's room, and you manage to find Dave's phone. You never touched it. It's been sitting on the desk for the years you've been here and you have never once touched it. You never needed to.

You text John.

You tell him you need help.

He asks if this is Davesprite and you say yes. You guess. You suppose. You don't want to be. But that's who you are to him. He asks if you're using Dave's old phone and you repeat your original query.

He tells you no, he's helping Rose move, didn't he tell you?

No. No one tells you anything.

You barely resist the urge to throw the device, and take a long deep breath, trying to quell the pain flaring up all over your back. Every movement hurts worse than the last.

You manage to make your way to the bathroom, somehow, and dig through the medicine, downing, like, seven Tylenol, and turning to try and see the damage.

What greets you is a terrible sight. The pattern now makes sense, and as you recall the event you can easily imagine the wing shapes you now have on your back with the way his hands moved, and the way the iron pressed against your skin.

There are freckles that will never quite be the same, and some that are gone, completely hidden under the mottled red skin. Every little touch and prod around them brings more tears stinging your eyes, and you dig through some more cabinets to find the peroxide.

You don't even try to do it carefully. Fuck Bro, he can clean it up himself later. You dump the contents of the bottle over your back, hissing and groaning and shrieking all at the same time with the feeling of it's burning.

You find a bandage in there, unsurprisingly. Dave and Bro did plenty of stitching each other up after a few of their strifes. You wrapped it around your torso until the very end of the roll, covering the burns up two-fold and the pain killers begin to set in but it doesn't quite do away with the pained feeling. You can still feel it, and you don't want to feel, god you want anything but to feel and so you swallow three more pills.

You make your way back to Dave's room, running a hand along the wall as you do and keeping yourself upright. When you get there, you lock the door. You know it won't keep Bro out, but it gives you a sense of comfort. You crawl onto the bed, lying down on your stomach, and ignore the vibrations of the phone a few feet away. You hug Dave's pillow to your chest and clench your teeth, bite back more noises, and wait, wait forever until you fall into a fitful, and dreamless, sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are not Dave. You haven't been Dave in six years. You're not Davesprite. Davesprite had bright orange hair and he was hated by a lot of people.
> 
> No. Now you're just you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DS takes a lot of pills, shoutout to my past self for inaccurate depictions of drug abuse.

You wake up in a place that is most definitely not where you fell asleep. You close your eyes against the onslaught of pain that begins to creep in as a small little whisper of sensation, but it never grows beyond that. Which is odd.

You open your eyes again and attempt to figure out where you are.

It looks like the living room. Here is where you get an inkling of panic, mostly wondering who brought you out here. Who put you on Bro's futon and where are they now. What are they going to do to you.

You hear yourself make a noise. A small distressed whine and you hear someone gasp, as if they were startled to hear it. Before you've gotten the time to regret the noise he's crouched down in front of you, a warm hand resting at the base of your neck and worried blue eyes crinkled at the sides as John stares at you.

“I came over as soon as I was done helping Rose.” John says quietly, and there's a look in his eyes. He feels guilty. You think he shouldn't. “I saw what... I guess it must have been Bro... I saw what he did to your back and I went and bought some better... I put the burn gel on and... wrapped it up again. Better than just peroxide at least.” You're drifting in and out of his talking, not really gathering most of the words, but you're grasping that he put some kind of medicine on your back. You put your arms under yourself, and push up on your elbows, ignoring the flare of pain and John's quickly telling you not to move.

You try to talk but your words are slurred with sleep and you get to your feet, wobbling. His hands are on you, one placed delicately on your shoulder and the other providing balance on your arm. You can't keep yourself up very well, so you point wordlessly toward the bathroom. “What...? Oh, uh. Right.” With his help you hobble over, and then shoo him off. You don't really need him all up in your business.

You spend a lot longer in there than you originally intend. Initially the idea was to go, and get back out, but you ended up curled up on the floor, feeling the painful stretch of newly healing skin on your back and you hissed at the feeling. You didn't want to go back out there with him, he was going to try and baby you and you didn't need that. You needed him to leave.

When you stand you look at yourself in the mirror. Remnants of foundation still staining the far edges of your face make you think of a girl who fell asleep drunk at a party. You remember the one and only time you got drunk, and remember it wasn't a pleasant experience. But you remember so little of it...

You take the pain killers, down five, and then make your way out of the bathroom, shuffling past John to the kitchen, where you dig for that one bottle Bro never touched. You didn't know why. You didn't care. You just knew that you'd seen it in there a million times and he'd never touched it. You think he may have tried it once, and didn't like it.

John's behind you as you dig, and when you get your fingers wrapped around the neck it's immediately snatched from your hand. “Dude, the fuck, no way, you're, what, like sixteen, physically? Not happening.”

“I don't need your fucking permission, Egbert.” You want so badly to punch him. Where the fuck does he get off blowing you off like that and then suddenly being here like everything's okay? You take the bottle back from his hand, and watch him get just a little bit more upset.

“Davesprite, this-”

“Stop. Fucking. Calling me that.” You watch him, the hand that was reaching for the bottle hesitating mid air and he stares at you. 

“Okay, Dave, you need to-”

“That either, I'm not fucking Dave.” He falls quiet again, and the hovering hand finally moves again, taking the bottle from your hands once more and he sets it on the counter.

“Just. Fine. What do you want me to call you?”

“I don't know.”

“That's helpful.” His hands move to your shoulders and he gently guides you out of the kitchen, and back to the futon, where he forces you to down while he checks out the burns again.

As he's unwinding strips of bandages he tries to make small conversation, and you sit there in silence. You don't want to talk to him, really. He rattles off a few topics to talk over but when he gets nothing he eventually falls silent until the bandages are gone and you're once more feeling the cool air on your back. It makes you shiver, and the air itself seems to burn you even more-so and you suck down a hard breathe to silence yourself from any pained sounds.

He prods at the skin around the burns and you hear his sympathetic hiss, and can almost see the wince. “Holy shit, D-” He cuts himself off, and you manage not to verbally thank him. He sighs a bit behind you, and begins to shuffle through some things, going over to a small plastic bag with who knows what in it and returning to your side, dropping some things there before going to the bathroom. You listen to the running water for a little bit as he supposedly is washing his hands before he returns again and takes a seat next to you.

You hear a click, like a cap coming off of something and then a liquid substance squirting out of a bottle. He mumbles a warning that it's going to be cold before his fingers begins to brush over your burnt skin, rubbing circles and spreading the burn medicine. The touches spark new pain, and you muffle your gasps and whines with your arms. You think he can tell though, because his touch becomes lighter, and he forcibly takes longer to squeeze out more of the medicine in between touching you.

He rubs small circles over the tips of the wings, finishing his application and finally capping the gel, setting it aside, and rubbing the remainder off on his jeans.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

No. You're not fucking okay. You're not even kind of okay, you are anything but okay, and you want to tell him this, you want to look him in the eyes and tell him that nothing, absolutely fucking nothing is okay, and is never going to be okay, not for you at least.

“No.”

John sighs again, and lightly taps your arms, instructing you to lift them as he wraps a new bandage. His fingers ghosting over your back and front make you want to shiver but you hold it down. You manage to stay still when the tip of his middle finger catches on your belly button and again when it catches on a burn. He notices that touch, and apologizes for it. He wraps your torso tight enough, but loose enough, and he presses gently on your shoulders, until you are lying down again.

You do as you're told, and his fingers then touch your hair, the once orange, now blonde, strands sliding between his fingers easily. “Is this why he did this to you?” He asks. It's gentle. More gentle than you even knew John could be. You manage a nod, and he begins to pet you a little. You're an injured animal, and he's treating you like one. You don't even care. “I found a red contact on the floor.” You nod. “You were trying to look like Dave.” You nod again.

He knows you fairly well. Three years was plenty of time to get to know you, really. He treats you differently than he treated Dave. You don't feel that much different. But apparently it's enough.

His hand leaves your head, goes to your neck, where he leaves feather like touches that soothe you more than you'd admit. “I'm gonna go to the store, okay. Just wait here. Go back to sleep if you want to. Don't move around too much, and if I find out you drank that cheap-ass whiskey I'll take you to the hospital.” You don't like the hospital. Which is probably why he didn't take you there in the first place. He knows you don't like the hospital. You nod a little bit and he stands, shuffles around a little bit, and you're asleep almost as soon as he's out the door.

You don't know how long it's been next time you wake up, but you can feel hands in your hair. Rubbing and pinching and tugging softly and it feels wet. You make a noise to signify you are indeed awake, and the movement stalls slightly. “Good, since you're awake, can you turn your head to the left a little?” You comply, turning and the hands move, rubbing and pulling and pinching in a new place.

After a while it stops and he tells you just to leave it for a while, and you realize it's hair dye. You wonder what color John picked. As long as it's not orange. You try to catch a glimpse when he walks away but his hands are bare, and clean. He must have used gloves. You decide you'll find out in a little bit.

Half an hour later, John has you leaning over the sink as he washes the dye out. He didn't want you going in the shower and bothering the burns. When it's declared clean, he grabs the towel he snagged from the bathroom and puts it on your head, tells you to dry it off as best as you can.

You do, and eventually decide it's as dry as it'll get. You toss the stained towel away without thinking to look and see what color has transferred over to the material. John turns on a shitty game show, and sits on the futon, motioning for you to sit with him. You don't. Not yet, at least, you tell him you will in a sec, hunt down the pain killers, swallow a few more.

When you do join him on the couch, you lay on your stomach next to him, resting your head on his thigh. He doesn't complain so you don't move. You fall asleep again.

The next time you wake up you are alone again. There's a note stuck to a plastic bag that reads “text me if you need anything. -John” and when you peek inside you see more burn medicine and bandages and even another bottle of pills. You don't really think John thought through the whole thing, seeing as you can't put the burn medicine on yourself.

You take the bag to Dave's room, and put it in the corner where you've been shoving all your stuff. You go to the bathroom and finally, finally catch a look at yourself in the mirror. Your hair has been many colors so far, but this one you never pictured yourself with. The black contrasts severely with your pale skin, and makes the orange freckles look even brighter, making them more obvious. It's got a blue-ish hue to it, and when you turn your head and run your fingers through the hair it shimmers in dark blues and it's actually... Well, you think it actually looks pretty good.

You swallow three pills, look at yourself in the mirror for a while longer, and go out to the living room, finding the discarded shades. You don't look like Dave. You don't even look like Davesprite. You look like... You don't know what or who you look like but you like that you don't look like either of them.

You are not Dave. You haven't been Dave in six years. You're not Davesprite. Davesprite had bright orange hair and he was hated by a lot of people.

No. Now you're just you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel bad for wanting to do this story. Let the record show that my others are not dead. I promise. They're just slow and this story is bleeding from my fingers like I cut them open.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DS starts talking to Dirk, who's totally chill and a totally cool dude-bro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a comment on this today and it reminded me that I actually had a chapter I could post aha. Plot stuffs are starting to fall into place, if ever so slowly.

You sit on the futon for a long time in the afternoon. Now that you've used Dave's phone once you feel more comfortable the next time you pick it up. There's a bunch of missed calls, shit ton of voicemails. When you check it's all John, very close together, shortly after you had sent him the original text. As you listen his voice gets increasingly more frantic over the span of messages, asking, pleading, then demanding you answer the phone. The largest gap between the messages is an hour between the last one and the second to last. In the last message John merely states that he is coming over, and that your ass had better not be dead by the time he gets there.

You're honestly surprised. You had been ignoring the phone after you patched yourself up but you were so fucking tired. You didn't even think he was that worried about you. You decide to text John and ask him how long you were asleep. He says he can't say for sure, but you slept about seven hours after he got to you. You ask him how long after you texted him the first time did he take to help Rose. He says about three hours and you let your mind linger on the fact that you slept for ten hours straight.

Slept a sleep deep enough that John moving you to the living room, going to the store, redoing your bandaging and whatever else happened while you were asleep didn't wake you. You can imagine you must have been exhausted.

You ask him if he'd seen Bro the entire time he was there, while you were asleep and he says no. You try not to wonder where Bro could have possibly gone off to. Despite your shitty dynamic he did kind of provide you with food, if not begrudgingly.

You wonder if being homeless would be easier. You wonder if someone would take pity on you and take you in. You spend a long time thinking about leaving and get so caught up in your thoughts you miss three calls from John.

When you finally come back to reality you read the messages you were too spaced out to notice, and then tell him you were just spaced out thinking and he didn't need to worry. He asks what you were thinking about and you consider a lot of answers, before simply saying 'leaving'.

You hate that selfish little part of you that wants him to offer you to come stay with him. If only to get you out of this apartment. When he doesn't offer, merely says 'well in a few years...' you ask him if he has Dirk's number. Or any of the other universe-kids, really. You're all here together, you assume the only reason they're not in Dave's phone is because he's not here to get the information.

He sends you all four, warns you that Jake and Jane are fighting again, and tells you not to bother Roxy between the hours of seven pm and five am. You look to the top of the screen, see the time is nine forty-five, and click on the underlined blue numbers next to Dirk's name.

You're not sure what to expect. With the way Bro has reacted to you and all. But it's not like you're replacing HIS Dave.

HIS Dave is off in what you call ‘New California’ because it’s basically this ‘verse’s California. The locals don’t call it that, they don’t know what it is. But that’s basically what it is. It functions the same way, it gossips the same way, every famous person under the sun lives there.

So you text him. Nothing too imposing. A simple sup. He responds with the same and a few moments later you get another asking who you are. The conversation goes surprisingly smooth. He doesn’t really treat you in any way particularly because you’re the Dave of this universe. He comments offhandedly on a number of occasions how you’re pretty much nothing like his bro or Dave, for the most part during the time he knew him.

He calls you DS and you kind of like not having the whole name and decide to keep that.

He asks you why it took three years to talk to him and you guess there's really no reason. You kind-of-sort-of explain the situation with Bro to him. Use vague terms, skip over the bad stuff. He doesn't really ask about it.

All in all you actually have a fairly pleasant chat with him. You go back and forth between talking to him and talking to John who constantly wants updates on how you're getting along with Dirk.

You sarcastically call him Mom at one point which earns you a litany of motherly questions (Did you do your homework? Did you clean your room? Wash the dishes? Did you fold the clothes? Did you walk the dog?)

You talk about some surprisingly deep stuff with Dirk. Weird, deep life questions that folks will be debating for centuries. He gives you a rundown of what the world outside of the Strider apartment is like. You tell him you're not a total shut in and you think he actually laughs when he sends back a message that just says “Haha.”.

John tells you Rose wants to talk to you and you tell him you don't want to talk to her all that much.

Dirk tells you he's bored as hell ninety percent of the time. When he's not working he has pretty much nothing to do.

You check the time, eleven-fifty-eight, tell him you're going to sleep and he tells you good night.

He wishes you sweet dreams.

And tells you not to let the bedbugs bite.

You tell John you're off to sleep and he tells you to be careful to not lie on your back, and that you ought to be able to lose the bandages first thing in the morning. Tells you that the burns will need to breath, so that they can heal without getting infected. He warns you that you might have to deal with being topless for a day and you tell him you can deal with that. He says goodnight, and tells you not to let the bedbugs bite.

You begin to wonder where that saying came from.

You go back to Dave's room, plug the phone in to charge and sleep, with only one memorable dream.

You dream of your universe. The original one. The one where you're Dave and everything is fine, and Bro doesn't look at you like you're a freak of nature.

Morning wakes you with a headache beyond your words and your back stings. At some point in the night you apparently rolled onto it. You have one message on the phone, from Dirk, simply saying ‘Good morning’.

You catch yourself smiling at the phone. You decide not to dwell on it. You merely reply properly, roll out of bed, wrap yourself in a blanket, and start making your way in the general direction of the bathroom.

Naturally, you couldn’t rid yourself of a pounding headache and burns that hurt like hell without some obstacle or another and what you face isn’t even a real obstacle. But, truth be told, when you see Bro sitting on the futon with the tv muted you freeze. You feel the ghost sensation of your neck feathers prickling to stand on end. You can’t bring yourself to move. You don’t want him to see you. You don’t want a repeat.

Of course he already knows you’re there. The sound is muted and the apartment is dead silent for a reason. But neither of you want to make the first move, you know this much about him. He doesn’t even want to look at you right now, you’re sure.

So you stay frozen, and he doesn’t move. Pictures flash over the television screen in a nonverbal story you have no interest in knowing. The standoff seems like it will never end.

After what feels like forever of silence, you get yourself to move. You take one step in the direction of the bathroom. When Bro doesn’t move, you take another. One at a time and he doesn’t ever move and you finally reach the bathroom when you’ve begun to think he’s not even awake there. Just sitting up like he is.

You close the door behind you and lean on it, taking a deep breath because you seriously thought you were going to die back there. You ignore the sting in your back as you get off the door, and you rummage for pills and down a small handful, putting the bottle back and determining you could really use a shower, fuck what John said about irritating your burns.

You turn the hot water all the way up, and give the cold water a little twist so that you’re getting at least a little less than boiling hot fucking water. Checking the temperature makes the skin on the back of your hand flare bright red and it stings a bit. You strip, and look at your back in the mirror while the bathroom begins to fill with steam.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk idk, there probably won't be too many more chapters.

Three weeks, two days and four visits to Dirk’s house later you’re feeling better. The orange roots of your hair are showing something fierce but you don’t bother to fix them because with the help of Dirk and John you’re actually relatively comfortable in your own skin right now and you don’t even know why it’s not like they made a conscious effort to reassure you or anything. But the point is, you don’t feel like covering up the bright orange roots.

Amazingly enough Bro’s dead silent treatment doesn’t even bother you anymore. What does bother you is when he does try to talk to you and it makes you shiver like a newborn kitten because every moment he is within five feet of you you feel like he’s going to hurt you.

The burns on your back are finally healed, at least enough that you can sleep on your back and not worry about your shirt being glued to it the next morning. Everything is generally better.

Of course you still hate your life, but you think you’re actually a semi-tolerable sprite right about now. Rather than completely insufferable you only think of yourself as mostly insufferable. of course mostly insufferable doesn’t mean you’ll randomly start sprouting self esteem, but John and Dirk are helping. 

Especially Dirk.

Some part of you totally recognizes that it’s weird for him to hit on you, but that part of you that was breaking yourself down over a million and a half things is eating up the compliments like a dog let loose in a bacon warehouse. You’re accepting them and it’s nice but at the same time way too weird for you to want to reciprocate that feeling. You’re not even going to try, just let him have his fun until he gets bored with you.

Which you think will happen eventually as his compliments are losing their grand structure and falling to cheesy one liners like-

“Did it hurt?”

“Did what hurt?”

“When you fell from Heaven, ahahah.” and he actually laughs at his own lines. And it’s just funny enough that you laugh with him.

You feel amazingly comfortable around Dirk, which is weird because he’s basically kid-version of Bro, but like. He’s not Bro. Not even a little bit. Only in appearance does he resemble your big bro, everything else is different. He’s ten times more socially awkward than Bro, that one’s for sure. you pin that one to him living in an empty apartment by himself for practically sixteen years. You like it though, when he fumbles over a word or awkwardly joins a conversation it sets him so far apart from Bro it makes you happy because it’s one of those big blinking signs that he is not Bro.

Which is why when he offers to let you crash in his extra bedroom you say yes.

It’ll be kind of like living with Bro except you won’t be living with the guy who pinned you down and gave you second degree burns all over your back. You think it could be nice.

You didn’t even hesitate.

You wanted out of the apartment, he even helped you get your shit. Bro looked so confused through most of the process of you moving your shit around and out. Hell he even asked where you were going it was fucking weird.

Like he cared or something weird like that.

You simply told him you were moving in with Dirk. He said he felt like a celebrity’s ex wife, being left for a younger, hotter and hornier version of himself. Funny as it was you couldn’t bring yourself to laugh, and you felt a hand on your shoulder, coaxing you away from Bro, and you realized you were back to that weird shaking thing again and you guess Dirk noticed.

You feel… Significantly better… Once the whole two boxes of shit you took with you is in Dirk’s car and it’s made apparent you are seriously moving out this is not a dream, not just a visit, you are going to be living somewhere where Bro is not and it’s… A good feeling.

You stay in your room a lot for the first week or so. You do go and hang out with Dirk, he often just waltzes into your room and loudly announces “Get your fine ass downstairs and on the couch we’re watching Supernatural,” or whatever show he happens to be hooked on that day.

Typically you respond with “Do I have to?”

To which he answers “Yes. You do. Because if we don’t watch the show it gets cancelled and I get sad.”

So you usually concede and watch television with him. He’s not into bad shows, really, you actually like most of them. He lets you dick around on his computer when it’s a show you don’t like, which is cool. You don’t even think he brings you down to watch the shows you think it’s for the companionship or something stupid like that. It’s actually kind of nice. Kind of reminds you of sitting around and watching tv with Bro before he lost his fucking mind.

When Dirk isn’t at work he’s usually just sitting around doing whatever he wants, building something, or making the latest interesting do it yourself thing he saw on the internet. Sometimes it’s food, which is fucking awesome, because it almost always turns out delicious. One time it was a cake, another time it was some weird casserole thing you don’t really understand, but it was good, and that was the important part.

When it’s not food it’s usually neat little tricks to keep shit organized or one time he bought a computer screen and took it apart and made glasses with part of the screen so that only the person with the glasses on could see what was on the screen.

It was cool. He let you have it.

You use it to look up shit you don’t think he’d be okay with. And he doesn’t question you when you ask for a certain kind of pain killers, and when he comes back from fucking Costco or something with two giant bottles full you almost feel sick with how it makes you happy. You keep those in your room, when you need to stave off the anxiety it helps.

Yeah, not the healthiest habit in the world, but it helps you, and it doesn’t hurt anyone else, so, it’s fine.

Dirk makes you watch a movie with him on Friday night, a whole week after you’ve moved in. It’s some B-movie about a tire killing people or some shit, and quite frankly it’s fucking terrible. But you laugh. And he messes with your hair when you’re both bored with it, and he tells you he’ll help you dye it again if you want. He makes popcorn for another movie, about a guy who kills himself over his girlfriend and goes to this special part of the afterlife for suicides and the two of you spend more time eating popcorn and singing the terrible song from the movie than you do actually paying attention to the plot. All you really know by the end of it is that the car is like eating shit and the guy gets eaten and comes back to life or some shit, you don’t fucking know.

Long after the movie is over you’re sitting on the opposite end of the couch from him and tossing popcorn while he tries to catch it in his mouth. He’s not bad, especially since your aim is shit.

It’s not really like when you lived with Bro. Even before, Bro was a lot less energetic. He was older, that probably had something to do with it.

In general living with Dirk is nice. John tells you at one point that you seem a lot happier lately and you think you probably do.

On top of Dirk being a cool person to share a living space with you are high on painkillers like all the time. So you suppose it’s entirely possible for you to seem happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like it's getting happy but wait until next chapter ahahahaha


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rape ahoy. This is where that fisting tag comes in, DS touches himself a bit.
> 
> Now to be honest with u guys I did start writing this chapter about the time I wrote chapter two and just finished it like fifteen minutes before posting it so it's all weirdly paced and it's pretty awful at least I think so.
> 
> Tbh, I've never actually written a rape scene before? I've written a smut on my own once, and I am one of the mods of Striderclan but never have I written a rape scene, so this is new territory for me, forgive me.

Back before the game ever started you’d only really touched yourself a handful of times. You hadn’t really been quite old enough to be going at yourself like you were going to die the next day. But the touching you had done had been enough. You knew how to handle a dick, at least. When you first prototyped yourself the bird parts didn’t bother you. During that three year journey you had plenty of time to get to know the new body you had, when Jade wasn’t around.

And years later this is still the first time you’ve dared run fingers under softer skin and touch the parts of you that are tucked away. Really, you’ll just call it like it is, you’re touching your vagina for the first time. Pretty much ever. At least with the intent to get off. Everything before had been purely exploratory.

But being around Dirk is fucking you over something fierce because he does not lock doors, and he masturbates far more often than you think is really healthy and it’s not the thought of him jacking his stick that does it for you it’s the thought of getting off after six fucking years of basically nothing.

The first time you walked in on him he stopped, almost seemed embarrassed for half a second before telling you to get the fuck out and leave him alone for an hour. You did.

The second time he didn’t stop, just told you to get out.

Third time he didn’t even acknowledge your presence, and you excused yourself.

Fourth, and final time (you began avoiding closed doors after this one) he locked his eyes with yours and stared you down, all the while, his wrist was going with wild abandon. You felt weird that you stared at him for as long as you did.

Three days after that one you started to think of things. You started to imagine yourself and realized you really fucking wanted to. You weren’t exactly properly equipped, to do it the way Dirk does, but you made it work and looked at some videos. Which brought you to where you are now.

Which is, lying on your loaner bed, tentatively running the very tips of your fingers over the sensitive skin. Even the light touches were sending small waves up your spine. You didn’t have to do much, you noted with a soft sigh. You didn’t dare much else for the longest time, but eventually your body felt like it couldn’t take the light touch anymore, and you prodded further with one finger.

It was warm. Wet. Initially it didn’t garner much sensation, but as you pressed a little harder, rubbed in a small circle you jolted. You gasped, your hand stopping at that moment. You repeated the motion, feeling out the new part of your body blindly and focusing on the spots that made you feel things. Good things. Things you haven’t felt in so long you almost cry at the touches you give yourself.

You add another finger, siding over slick skin next to the first and it adds to the feeling. You sigh, happy. So happy. It feels good.

You explore further, finding the entrance, dipping a finger in. Being surrounded is an odd feeling, being penetrated, even odder; but neither are entirely unpleasant. You prod with the one for a moment, feeling a soft moan escape you. It’s all new feelings. You like the feelings.

You continue the exploration. Using the newfound knowledge to press, and circle and even pinch the right places and you get so caught up in it you don’t hear the door.

You don’t feel the eyes on you until you’ve pulled your touches to make them lighter and you finally aren’t overrun with sensations blocking out the rest of the world.

You’re fully aware of your surroundings the moment you realize you’re being watched. Your eyes snap to the intruder, your fingers frozen in place inside of you, to meet Dirk’s wide eyes. You’re not sure why he doesn’t immediately grasp that you don’t want him around right now, and his eyes move from yours, down your body. When they stop you know exactly what he’s looking at and it makes your cheeks flush.

“Do you fucking mind?” You snap and his eyes dart back up to yours.

“Sorry! Shit, just…” They drift again, and to your complete and utter outrage he dares step forward, “you’re doing it wrong.” He says simply.

You level a harsh glare at him. What right does he have to say you’re fucking touching yourself wrong? Is it any of his business? You never told him he was doing it wrong when you walked in on him. You hate to say it, but you are downright indignant. “I’m doing just fine. Seriously, go away.” He doesn’t. You almost want to hit him, but don’t. Who knows, maybe he knows more about this than a few shitty videos can tell you. “Dirk, unless you know about some magic orgasm button, I seriously would prefer to do this myself, thanks.” You never imagined you’d have a conversation like this with your fingers buried knuckle deep inside yourself, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.

He takes another step forward, lifting a hand to point. “I don’t know about a magic orgasm button, but I know my fair share about handling your hardware.” You resist visibly blanching.

“Wow, way to kill my boner.” You sigh, finally freeing your fingers and wiping them off on your sheets. “I don’t even want to get off anymore, knowing that you’ve seen my birdy-bits, and have referred to them as hardware. They are offended. Go away.” You wave your clean hand, and sit up, twisting to grab the pair of shorts you had tossed aside for this. You manage not to yelp when you turn back and see Dirk perched on the bed next to you.

“Look, you looked like you were pretty desperate to get off right then. I don’t think I’ve seen someone react to such small touches like that before. Let me help, trust me, you’ll thank me later when you’re done sleeping off the after-glow.”

“As appealing as the thought is, I’m gonna pass.”

"Nah, man, you look like you need this." He places a hand on your shoulder pushing you back into lying down as he situates himself between your legs, which you promptly close with an angry growl.

"Seriously, don't fucking touch me."

Your demand goes unnoticed, however, as he grabs your knees and pushes them in opposite directions. You fight him, swatting harshly at his hands as he forces your legs apart, and it only takes a moment to realize he's quite a bit stronger than you. 

You cross your ankles, twist your legs together but he pries them apart despite your verbal protests, slowly descending into a bit of panic, and when your muscles refuse to fight back any longer he gets straight to business. 

He shoves two fingers into you too fast and too sudden and you make an embarrassing squeaking noise at the feeling of alien appendages wiggling around inside of you.

"Oh, sorry did that hurt?" It really didn't but you send him a glare and attempt to plant a kick to his shoulder, you miss and he crooks his fingers, pressing in a way that shoots electricity up your spine. "I'll be more careful." And he has the fucking gall to smile at you.

He begins moving, fingers turning and he moves his other hand to join, using only his thumb to massage the sensitive nub above where his fingers begin thrusting in and out of you.

Your silence is broken by the smallest of whimpers. He said he was trying to help you or some shit but this is definitely nothing you ever wanted to happen to you and you breath requests to stop please stop.

You reach for his hands, grip on one wrist faltering when he pulls back and thrusts with the two fingers harder than before and you have to grab the blanket beneath you to keep from crying out. "Just relax." He says softly, and moves the hand not currently violating your insides to rub your thigh in a gesture that's probably supposed to be comforting. "It'll feel good if you relax."

His fingers spread, scissoring, as your body betrays you and you moan at the feeling. You feel him pull out again press in again and feel him moving in circles as his thumb returns, pressing so softly you almost make another noise at the feather like touch. 

You're quiet until he pulls back and you feel him prod softy with a third finger. You make a godawful sound that could be interpreted as a no and he goes back to rubbing your thigh, leaning down and placing soft pecks on your stomach. It's not encouraging at all, and your protests are cut off by a pained sob when he presses three fingers in.

You feel a burn in your eyes as tears spill over and words begin to pour out of your mouth.

"Dirk! S-stop you're h-hurting me!" And it's hardly intelligible, it's broken sounding and it makes your insides twist, hearing yourself sound so terrified.

He responds by kissing higher, up your ribs to your chest to your neck, and he starts laying soft kisses over your jaw when he carefully wipes tears away with his finger. He whispers things to you, telling you that you just need to relax, that it's supposed to hurt the first time, if you relax it'll feel better. 

You gasp when he begins thrusting with the three, already painful, fingers. Dirk makes an offhanded comment that you're tight and your mind screams 'I fucking wonder why!!!' while you almost scream curses at him.

He doesn’t stop. You beg and you kick out at him but he doesn’t stop. He asks quiet questions that you don’t know the answer to and he tests out whatever theory he’s wondering about when you don’t offer any answers. He asks how much he can fit, and this question is quiet, and honest curiosity, but to you it sounds like he’s saying he wants to push your every limit and beyond and the question is very shortly followed by a fourth, significantly smaller, finger.

At first you don’t feel his pinky join the others, not when it’s just pressing softly on the outsides of your entrance and he isn’t pushing with it, but when he tucks it close to the others and presses in you do feel it. It feels like the proverbial straw that’s going to break the camel’s back, or in this case it’s going to fucking break your private parts.

You let loose a high pitched wail, and Dirk immediately starts trying to hush you, repeating reassurances until you’re just swallowing air instead of screaming. He holds still for what feels like way too long, just entirely too long before he moves his fingers. He flexes them, and it sends an overwhelmingly mixed sensation of pain and pleasure up your spine. You cry out loudly again, this time it’s shorter, and he smiles down at you.

He looks so fucking pleased with himself and you hate him in that moment. You wonder how long he wanted to do this.

 

He’s flexing his fingers and spreading them, in turn spreading you, and the pain lessens so slowly you don’t notice it’s gone until you feel his thumb pressing, rather insistent, at the already too tight skin around his other fingers.

“Dirk,” it comes out small, shaking, and he shushes you softly, “p-please. Just stop.” but he doesn’t, he wipes your cheeks and rubs soft circles over your thigh, presses with his hand and you feel an impossible burning in your stomach as he presses and his knuckles are too big, they’re not going to fit. He doesn’t seem to care, however, as he keeps going, pressing beyond your protests and your sobs and he forces his hand impossibly deeper.

You change your mind about the pinky when he gets past the widest part of his hand, this is the breaking point. This is when you feel like you’ve been broken in half and tossed in a garbage disposal.

“Holy shit.” He whispers, more to himself, as if he wasn’t expecting it to fit and your answer is nothing more than a sob.

It’s quick after that. He curls his fingers until he has a fist buried wrist deep inside you and he plays with the angles and motions and thrusts and he laughs when you scream, when you arch your back you aren’t sure if it’s to get closer or farther away from the touches.

Your climax is quiet, your voice is gone but Dirk feels it and he smiles at you. When he pulls his hand out it feels like your body is trying to pull it right back in and it ends with this loud wet noise that makes you shudder in disgust with yourself.

“See?” He says eventually, wiping his hand off on the sheets and leaning over you to smile. “Told you I could help.” And you don’t have the energy to fight him. You don’t have the will to curse and scream and you don’t have the motivation to tell him he’s wrong. The noise that leaves you reminds you of how pathetic you are, for trusting this iteration of the same person just because he grew up in a different universe.

He leaves you with a soft good night, and a reassurance that; next time, it won’t hurt as bad.

You cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh, okay, now it's actually going to start kind of getting happier. I mean probably, honestly up to this point is all I have planned but I'll think of something. This'll have a happy ending eventually.
> 
> (whispers that comments motivate me more than anything else)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More rape, lots of self loathing, victim blaming kinna shit, Dirk's a cock, that kind of stuff. DS makes himself throw up.
> 
> Ok so I got this done way fast. I finally have a clearer idea of HOW I'M GOING TO END IT.  
> THREE MORE CHAPTERS!
> 
> Also I run into issues with this story and whether or not I should tag it as having a transgender character?  
> Because genetically speaking, like according to hospitals and shit in this 'verse, Ds is male, but he has human female anatomy?  
> halp

Dirk Strider is an impatient person. Dirk Strider moans like he’s paid to do it. Dirk Strider’s dick is more than six inches long, but less than seven. Dirk Strider has spunked on your face three times in the past forty eight hours and you think it’s because he’s mad at you and knows you hate it when he does that.

It’s not some exfoliating facial scrub, you’ve washed your face raw trying to get his fucking baby batter off of it for the past hour. It started burning to touch it twenty minutes ago but it doesn’t feel clean. Drying off has you hissing and cursing and you look at yourself in the mirror. The bright red of skin that’s been scrubbed off hides the bright orange freckles and the bags under your eyes look darker than before, they look like a perch for bloodshot orange eyes that have influenced Nannasprite to ask if you’re smoking pot.

You stare at yourself for a few more minutes before turning the sink back on, lowering your face and splashing water again. You soap up, and scrub.

*

You know how many pills it takes to send you to the hospital. You know how much withdrawal sucks. You know that it takes Dirk exactly twenty three minutes and seventeen seconds to go to the store and buy you more and you know the look he gets when he’s worried about something. More specifically when he’s worrying about you.

You know that it takes anywhere between three days and eight days for hickeys to heal. You know that Dirk likes to give them to you whenever he can. You know that the first day Dirk gave you any hickeys he had so much fun with the first one that he gave you seventeen afterwards. Eight on your neck and around your collarbones, five on your hips, and four on your thighs.

You know a lot of things.

You don’t know why Bro got so mad at you that day those months ago. You don’t know why Dirk likes to touch you. You don’t know what to do anymore. You don’t know why you’re afraid to leave the house. You don’t know why you can’t imagine being anywhere but with Dirk.

You don’t know what John has been doing lately. You don’t know why you haven’t talked to him in a week and a half. You don’t know why you bother to wake up in the morning.

You don’t know a lot of things.

*

The first time you talk to John after the first time Dirk put his hands on you you lie to him a lot. It’s been a few weeks since you last spoke and John mentions it, he asks about what’s been going on lately. You ignore the fingers that brush over your neck, the shudder they bring forth, and you tell him not much. He asks how things are with Dirk and you tell him everything is okay. You say that it’s more than okay, and you tell him about movie night and tell him that everything is great. You use the word perfect at one point.

When you hang up a few minutes later Dirk is next to you on the couch, asking what you and John talked about. You recite the conversation to him as he puts hands under your shirt and he presses soft kisses to your neck. He acknowledges that you’re talking, but he doesn’t respond to it.

He was right. It didn’t hurt nearly as much after the first time.

*

The first time Dirk tried to put his dick in you was three weeks after the first time. You don’t remember ever feeling anything quite like the feeling when you saw him pull it out and start lining up. You want to compare it to terror. Complete and utter terror beyond words you know and you don’t remember much of your reaction.

You remember kicking a lot, you remember him yelling for you to stop hitting him. You kicked until you fell off the bed and you were going to leave but Dirk was hurt. You didn’t get farther than the door before he groaned in pain and you felt a knot in your stomach.

You hurt him.

You’re in tears again by the time you climb onto the bed next to him and start trying to tend to his wounds. He shoves you away from him and prods at his nose, he tells you you broke it and asks what your problem is. You’re choking, trying to breathe and you’re apologizing for hurting him.

He’s mad, and he lets you know it. He shoves your face down and he forces himself into you. He hits you when you cry too much for his liking, and he comes on your stomach without giving you the courtesy of a climax.

*

You’re bent over the arm of the couch the day Jake walks in without knocking. You stare at him and beg without words for him to leave and pretend he never saw anything. He doesn’t say anything to you or Dirk he just turns and leaves.

You think that’s how John figured out. Jake must have told him.

*

John doesn’t know the whole story, you realize the next time you talk to him. As far as he knows you and Dirk are just fucking. He asks you a few questions, mostly just if you know it’s kind of weird to be having sex with this dude who’s basically your bro-dad thing. You tell him you do know. You tell him you don’t want to talk about it and he lets it go.

He takes you to his house with the announcement that you haven’t gotten out of the house much. You watch him play video games and flinch every time his hands get near you and you’re scared he’ll notice. You don’t want him to notice.

When he’s taking you back in the morning he stops in a parking lot a few blocks away and he asks you if everything really is okay.

“What? Yeah, dude everything’s fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I’ve passed Dirk’s house three times and you haven’t said anything.”

You don’t say anything to him. He doesn’t leave the parking lot. You sit in the car while he stares at you for an hour and a half before you crack. You don’t think he was actually expecting you to cry. Because when you do start he doesn’t react for a while. He tries to comfort you but every time he gets near you you scream at him.

You yell at him and tell him not to touch you, and he looks so fucking confused and he doesn’t know what to do, you can tell, but you don’t know what to say to him because you don’t know what he’s supposed to do either.

It all starts pouring out of you in waves, you tell him everything. It was all wonderful for the first few weeks until Dirk walked in on you, and you recount every time Dirk touched you and every time you asked him not to.

John’s staring at you like your head is turning in circles by the time your story is over and tell him you just want someone to help you and not fuck you over in the end.

You want to be able to look in the mirror without immediately feeling the overwhelming sensation that you need to bathe right then and there. Without feeling like the only way to be better is to do away with every layer of skin and turn into something else.

You tell him at night you dream about becoming a bird. You fly away and you never have to come back. You tell him how it always ends the same way. A child shoots you with a pellet gun and you can no longer fly. Another child tells them to put you out of your misery, and they do.

It's always the sweetest relief.

*

Nannasprite makes you stay with her after John tells her about what's going on with Dirk. No one told Dirk you were leaving, though. She showed up while he was at work and she didn't tell you where you were going, so you assumed you'd be back before him.

When the time came around that Dirk would normally be getting home you panicked and Nannasprite hushed you softly. She kept her hands away from you, and used her words to keep you seated at her kitchen table. When you started insisting on going home she asked if you'd rather stay or go home to someone who will likely be very upset that you left.

And it worked for a few hours until he called you. Nannasprite told you that you didn't have to answer so you didn't. Not with her there watching. You sent him a message instead, telling Nannasprite you were talking to John. You told him you were just with Nannasprite and he said he was only upset you didn't tell him. He asked how long you would be gone and you confessed that you didn't actually know. He told you to be back in the morning and you said okay, even though you knew you wouldn't.

*

Three days after you were taken to Nannasprite’s house you told her you were sick. You played it up, even went so far as to make yourself throw up so she would buy it.

You just wanted her to leave, and when you asked her to go get you some juice or something from the store she was more than happy to leave. And so were you.

You weren’t sure where you were going, but something about being in there made you feel trapped. You felt like you weren’t free to go anywhere even though Nannasprite told you a few times that it was okay. That you could go places, as long as you didn’t go to Dirk’s house, or the apartment.

Nannasprite was very much a mother. You wondered how she was like before she died. You don’t imagine talking to Jane would have the same effect, seeing as Jane came from a completely different universe. It wouldn’t be the same.

You walked around in circles, down streets you didn’t recognize, and over a stream, you walked past a store.

You don’t know where you are after an hour. Another hour later you’re sure you’re not even in the same town anymore.

You sit on a bench in a park three hours after you’ve left the house. You can feel Dave’s phone going off in your pocket, John or Nannasprite or Dirk again, and they’re probably calling and looking for you, but you don’t want them to find you.

You sit there until it’s dark. A few kids approach you and ask you to play a game with them until their parents step in and tell their kids not to talk to you. A woman asks if she can bum a cigarette, and a man propositions you and then calls you a load of disgusting names when you reject him. You check the time on your phone when you get tired of staring at your feet and moping and call John. It’s two in the morning but he answers immediately, and starts yelling at you for disappearing and not telling anyone.

You tell him you don’t know where you are, and he calms down, you listen to his breathing slow, you listen as he takes a deep breath and calmly asks you if you can tell him some of the things around you. He asks you to describe your surroundings.

“I’m in a park.”

“I’m gonna need more information than that.”

“There’s a pool down the street.”

“Okay what’s the name of the pool?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just find a fucking sign somewhere!” He snaps and you flinch at the sudden change of his voice. “You’re at a fucking park, Dave, there are a lot of fucking parks here, and yes, a lot of them have pools. Get the fuck off your ass and find a sign!”

He’s quiet after that, and you can’t bring yourself to say anything. You just stand, and do what he says. You go back to the pool. You find a sign and you open your mouth to tell him when he starts talking.

“Dave? Are… Are you still there?” You don’t say anything, “Dave I didn’t mean to yell at you… I’m just… I’m worried about you, because you can’t disappear like that, we thought you went back to Dirk’s house…”

“Carlington.”

“What?”

“It’s the name of the pool…”

“How did you get all the way out there?”

“I walked…”

“We’ll be there in an hour okay.”

“Okay.”

“Just. Don’t go anywhere, okay?” You nod a little bit, and it isn’t until John prompts that you remember he can’t see you nodding.

“Yeah. I won’t.” You sit on a bench, you stare at the missed calls list on your phone, and you try to pretend you’re not just a burden for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure there is no pool with the name of carlington that is bullshit that i just wrote in for the fuck of it, idk idk.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for body horror, I guess?
> 
> Soooooooo, here's this one. Hoping to finish up the entire story by NEXT Saturday, so we have two chapters left.
> 
> ALSO I got a fanart for this:  
> http://bruhthatsgay.tumblr.com/post/87399855688/psychozadoesthedraws-no-matter-what-when-you
> 
> Also heads up there's some body horror in this chapter, like burnt skin and stuff (Ds dreams about the John from his timeline and all that)

You know where you are. Which is an odd feeling considering you were lost in a park just moments ago. But you know this room because you've been in it a handful of times in the past few years. You are in John's room. And you are alone. 

You don't know where John is. You don't know how you got here, but you feel comfortable inside the four walls. You sit on the bed, the sheets printed with little ghosts and the poster coated walls amazingly calming as you breathe in the scent of a house that has been baked in for years. 

You let it surround you. You let yourself go in this place that's safe and familiar. 

Soon enough it falls apart. The walls grow black stains and marker drawings you recognize. The smell of cakes and icing is replaced by the smell of something burning. You know what it is. It's skin. 

"Dave?" That's not your name. But on instinct your body responds, and you open your eyes and turn to the one standing next to you. 

The young man before you seems to be the source of the burning smell. His face is covered in burns, some only red and others you can see to the bone. The one that your eyes focus on is his cheek, the corner of his lips on the left side, you can see straight to his teeth, which are blackened and bloody from the burnt flesh around them. His clothes are in no better condition, patches of fabric scorched into nothingness and showing off red and blistered skin. 

He smiles at you. 

"John." your voice wavers and his smile gets bigger. 

"You're my Dave." he says, sounding so sure and you finally recognize the grin of a thirteen year old boy who doesn't know how lucky he was to die early. 

When this thought hits you, he blinks, the bright blue disappearing from his eyes and leaving nothing but the white behind. 

"You're not dead." he says and he drops himself onto the bed next to you. "What happened to your hair?" he asks and takes a strand of faded black hair in between two fingers, both nothing more than charred bones. 

This isn't real, you realize and it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You make a point not to look at John's eyes. You keep your eyes on his cheek or his head. Where normally there would be long black hair there is charred bristles over the left side, dead hair perched on the blistered skin that makes it all uneven. 

"Are you okay?" he asks softly, dropping the hair from between his fingers and moving the hand down to rest on yours. You decide to look there instead. All five of his fingers are bones. Halfway down the back of his hand it transitions to red and blistered skin and by his wrist its pink again, and smooth. 

Your hand shifts out from under his and you touch his wrist, where the skin is healthy and clean. 

"Dave?" 

You follow his arm up, the sleeve of his suit ends in charred fabric halfway down his forearm and you run your fingers to it. Then over it to the next patch of visible skin on his shoulder. 

"Dave wake up." 

He keeps calling you that. 

"You didn't overdose and die on my did you?" He sounds so worried. But it's not a bad question is it? Did you? You could have, honestly, but before you can dwell on it further his arm moves away. John stands and takes a step back. 

"You have to wake up now. But come back and see me. Promise?" you look up and his voice is different than the one trying to coax you out of this place. This voice is younger but they are both distinctly John. 

It's a great effort to open your eyes. You come face to face with vibrant blues, creased around the corners with worry, and it aches to see those eyes so scared. They should be happy. They shouldn't be contorted in such a negative way just because of you. 

"Oh thank god." he breathes, relaxing minutely as he reaches out. When his hand touches your shoulder you jerk away from it, and he does as well, pulling his hand back. 

Instead of leaving it be, you reach out, your hand shaking as you take his and put it on your shoulder. He still frowns. He rubs small circles with his thumb and although the part of you where his hand is feels like it's on fire you don't want to get away from the comforting touch. 

He doesn't rush you. He lets you lie on the bench, and he doesn't say anything. He lets you stay there and acclimate to his hand on your shoulder. You stay until it doesn't hurt, until his hand doesn't make you want to pour acid on yourself, and when it finally stops being a terror you put your hand over his. You want to thank him but you're not sure how. There are too many reasons, too many things you haven't thanked him for already. 

"Let's go home." he says quietly, moving his hand to your back as he stands and motions for you to get up as well. 

You don't fight him. You sit up, following the touch as he gently leads you to his car. 

In the back seat is Nannasprite, and she seems to have fallen asleep. You get in the passenger seat next to John and he starts driving without a word. 

When he parks in front of Nannasprite's place he tells you to sit in the car. He gets out and you keep your eyes trained on your hands as he wakes her up and talks her out of giving you a lecture. He takes her inside, and he stays for a handful of minutes before returning to you. 

Unlike the drive to Nannasprite's, this time he talks. He talks about nothing and everything at the same time, you're sure it's just to fill the silence. It works, but the constant reassurance that you're with someone who hasn't harmed you physically relaxes you. 

When you fell asleep, exactly, you don't know. The next thing happening is John softly shaking your shoulder to wake you. It takes an effort, but he gets you up and he's taking you into his house. 

"You're gonna stay with me now, okay?" he says once inside and you only nod in answer. He gets you something to sleep in, and he takes you to the couch, he makes you lay down, and you're off again before he's even left the room. 

You dream of being a bird. 

You're woken by a smell distinct to pancakes. Butter and syrup and what you think might be bacon that's only just started cooking. There's a blanket over you that you don't remember falling asleep with and you decide not to get up, instead to take hold of the plush comforter and burrow into it. It's warm in a way you haven't felt in a long time. You're not sure the words to describe it. 

When the smell of food is too tempting you finally rise. You shift to stand and hood the blanket over you as you shuffle into the kitchen. John is leaning on the counter next to the stove and his eyes meet yours the moment you enter. 

"Good morning." he says quietly, standing up a little straighter. You don't move under his gaze, and he doesn't say anything for a while. 

"Help yourself." is what he says when he finally does speak again, and he points to a pile of pancakes and the toppings all set out next to it. 

You take a plate and start gathering up a breakfast for yourself. "So why did you make pancakes?" you ask quietly, hoping not to upset anyone with the simple question. 

"Stress cooking." he responds simply. "I become a five star chef when I'm stressed." he shrugs. You just nod and fix your pancakes. You don't put anything on them, just pour some syrup on the plate and then proceed to rip apart the fluffy flapjacks with your fingers and dip them. John watches you from the corner of his eye as he tends to the bacon, but doesn't question you.

You stand nearby as you eat, and you’re almost done with the first pancake when John walks over, a few pieces of bacon masterfully balanced on a fork. He puts them on the plate with your pancakes and you give him a small thank you.

He nods and goes back to the food, preparing himself some breakfast and leaning on the counter by you as he eats.

Breakfast is mostly quiet.

Once you’ve both eaten he asks if you want to watch television or something and honestly that sounds like something okay to do. But as you’re sitting there watching John has a look like he’s thinking really hard about something on his face and it worries you. You don’t say anything. You simply watch him from the opposite end of the couch, and you wonder what it is he could be thinking so hard about.

Three hours of shitty pawn shop shows later John mutes the sound and looks over to you, finally meeting your eyes on his. He still has that thinking look.

“Do you want to live with me or Nannasprite?” He asks, the way he says it telling you that those are your only options. And as nice as living with Nannasprite was, you did feel trapped. You didn’t feel it as much here.

“You.” You answer simply and he nods a little bit.

“You still have your stuff at Dirk’s , right?" You nod wordlessly. "Do you want me to take you to get it?" You shake your head quickly, you don't want to go back not even for the stuff you left. "You don't have to. I would go with you and I wouldn't let him touch you." and then you're thinking about some of the stuff you did leave. 

You left sentimental shit back there. 

"Okay." if John is coming and he's going to be there then why not? "I. I want my stuff." 

John nods a bit at you. "We can go tomorrow if you want." you bob your head in answer. 

John reassures you that you'll be okay, that he won't let Dirk do anything to you. He lets you be when you nod and refocus on the show. 

He changes the channel to something less stupid and you watch that for a few more hours until your stomach starts acting up. You aren't sure if you're hungry or if you're going to puke so you don't end up saying anything until it hurts too much and you ask John if you can have something to eat, anything really, and he gets up and goes to the kitchen. 

He comes back bearing plates with pizza on them and he hands you one, returning to his seat. You enjoy pizza and mindless tv for a long time. 

"Hey, Dave?" you were on your second slice (John had finished his) when he spoke up, and the name made you pause on your way to take a bite of pizza. He's been calling you that a lot lately. 

"Why do you keep calling me that?" you ask instead of asking him what he wants. 

"Because... It's your name?" he says it like it's the obvious answer to a stupid question. 

"That's not my name." 

"Yes it is." he furrows his eyebrows, frowning at you. 

You're not budging though. You aren't Dave. Dave wasn't as much of a baby as you are, he wouldn't have cried over the shit that's happened, he would brush it off like nothing. "I'm not Dave." 

"Yes you are." his face softens, he's not confused anymore. For some reason that makes you mad. Because he's wrong. You know he's wrong. He's making you someone else. 

"I'm not Dave, John. We've been over this." you grumble in response. Returning your attention to your pizza and managing a few bites before he talks again. 

"What makes you say you're not Dave?" 

"I wasn't... I wasn't supposed to make it to this universe. I was supposed to die with the old one but then Dave died and I was the only other thing around so it took me instead. Dave is Twinkies and I'm a Little Debbie snack cake, we may look the same but he's real and I'm someone else's poor attempt to duplicate." 

"Twinkies are gross." 

"Way to entirely miss the point."

“The knock off ones are gross too.”

You give up on this argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope u guys are ready for more Dirk ahahahaha


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings, except John punches Dirk and Dirk creeps on Dave.
> 
> Short chapter whoops.
> 
> ((mood music http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/And+The+Things+Burned+Into+Me/98390534 ))

When Dirk opens the door he looks between you and John and heaves a long sigh. “Holy shit where did you even go?” He asks and you stand behind John. He was going to protect you. You wanted to be protected. You didn’t want Dirk to come near you and when he took a step forward John took you back a step.

“We’re just here to get his stuff.” John says, and Dirk quirks an eyebrow. Apparently Dirk wasn’t aware you were moving out completely.

You take another step back, but your fingers stay firmly clenched in the back of John’s shirt. Dirk’s expression changes from confusion to annoyance and he starts up some spiel about how you don’t have to go with John if you don’t want to, and John snaps back with some remark about how you shouldn’t have had to do the things you did with him because you didn’t want to.

You bury your face in John’s back to keep from having to look at Dirk as you are let inside.

John doesn’t make you let go, but he does make you pull away long enough to tell you where you had all your stuff.

Dirk is never far behind during the walk to your room. Feeling his presence behind you has your heart pounding in your ears and and your stomach is in knots but he doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t touch you until you reach the room and he doesn’t stop soon enough, which ends up with you between him and John. It’s bad enough that he’s leaning against you, and when he pulls away he runs his fingers down your neck.

John definitely notices the way you shake, and he looks over his shoulder to see what happened. By the time he’s looking Dirk has taken his steps back.

You gather your things quickly, and John stands by you the whole time. Dirk leans in the doorway and watches, throwing out a comment or a question every now and then. He makes a comment about your ass. He asks John if he can talk to you alone at one point and John says no.

You know that John saying no doesn’t mean Dirk won’t find a way to get you alone.

He does. John leaves the room for one second and you hear the door close and it has you frozen in a second.

You don’t really remember much of your English classes from seventh grade and under, you know that there are words other than scared but you can’t think of any of them when you peek over your shoulder and see that it’s Dirk in the room with you and not John. He’s mad. He’s mad and he shows it and he raises his voice when he asks, no, _demands_ to know why you lied and ignored him for days.

He backs you into the corner with every step he takes closer. You shrink down as he curses and bites off insults at you. You find yourself apologizing. You’re sure there’s a reason behind the banging sound pounding in your ears.

Dirk’s hand in your hair has you calling out for John, but he doesn’t grab it, he doesn’t pull. He pets, he crouches to be nearer to you, and he wipes tears off your cheeks. He lowers his voice to a whisper, and he tells you that it’s okay. He tells you that you can stay and he won’t hold this against you. He kisses your forehead and tells you to stay with him.

You refuse to look at him. You don’t want to see his face you want to leave, you want to go stay with John and you don’t want to stay with Dirk.

You hear a loud noise, something breaking; Dirk gets pulled away from you and you hear someone getting hit. Again and again and it goes on and on.

It’s quiet for a few moment before you feel someone’s presence next to you. John speaks quietly, telling you that it’s okay, and that he’s going to touch your shoulder before he actually makes contact. Even with the warning you cringe down, but you quickly turn and cling to him. You bury your face in his neck and he puts his arms around you. You don’t fight him, you don’t get away from the arms that feel like they’re going to burn through you because you need this comfort more than you ever realized. You needed this hug, you need more of this hug.

John is careful, he leads you out of the room out to the car and he puts you in the passenger seat. You catch sight of red on his knuckles and pretend you didn't. He takes two more trips inside and he gets your things, puts them in the back seat and he takes you back to his house.

Your stuff is left in the car and he takes you inside, he makes you sit on the couch and he brings you water and makes you drink and he talks to you and comforts you.

He puts on a movie, he sits next to you and he lets you lean on him. John talks quietly to you throughout the movie, he talks about the things he knows, from deleted scenes and things he’s seen on the internet. He makes it about anything but what’s happened to you. He only touches you when you ask him to do something, he strokes your shoulder and is gentle.

You fall asleep on him. You didn’t finish the movie, or your water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more, yo, and we're done, and I can work on other shit like batshit crazy bitches or through thick and thin w00t.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not necessarily happy, but kind of hopeful ending.

You wake up in the morning surrounded by an unfamiliar warmth. It’s unfamiliar and comfortable and you don’t ever want to get away from it. You want to stay there and be comfortable and forget the past five months of your life, because they were horrible, awful and quite frankly you’re so tired.

You’re tired of being you and you’re tired of being hurt. You’re too tired.

You open your eyes and you’re on John’s couch, where you vaguely remember falling asleep last night. You’re covered in blankets. A few of them. Three at least. John is curled up on the floor, one blanket over him and you listen to him breathing.

You find yourself listening for a really long time. You think it’s probably bordering on creepy about half an hour in when you’re trying to match your pace with his. You have trouble breathing as slow as him.

It’s probably another hour later when you bother to get off the couch, and you feel the blood rush to your head. You let the feeling come and go, and once you’re standing you feel better. You slouch, you stand up straight, you stretch your arms up above your head and hook your hands, you listen to your spine popping until there’s blood rushing to your head and making you dizzy again.

You let your blood settle again, and then you twist your arm at an odd angle and shove your hands up the back of your shirt, scratching the scars on your back that itch sometimes. The itch travels, your hands follow, your dig in with your nails and get the relief only for it to move again and soon enough you’re scratching at your ankles. You finish up and stand, looking down at yourself and seeing the places where you dug in just a little too hard, and the skin is red.

You look down to John again. He’s still asleep. He doesn’t look like he’ll wake up soon. He was probably awake a lot later than you.

You move to stand next to him, and then crouch to put a hand on top of his. You’re not sure why, really. But it makes you feel a little less shitty about being a bother to him.

You don’t stay for too long; you only hold his hand for a few minutes before deciding you want to get your things from the car. And you want to NOT be caught creeping on John in his sleep.

You’re not sure where you’re sleeping, really. There’s only one bedroom, and it’s John’s and you’re sure as fuck not sleeping in there. The couch is probably going to be where you sleep the most. So you just put your stuff in the living room and sit on the couch again. You check your phone and find a few missed messages from Rose, one from Jade and a fuck load of missed calls from Dirk.

You toss the phone in one of the boxes. You don’t really want it anymore.

You shuffle through the blankets you woke up with, pulling one over your shoulders as you lie down to sleep again. You never do. You’re still staring at the ceiling when John snorts loudly as he wakes up. He mumbles something about how the floor is uncomfortable and you look over to him while he sits up and stretches his back. 

It’s a few moments before he sees you but when he does he frowns. ”You look like shit.”

“You really know how to woo a lady, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I do. Are you sick or something?” He finally sits up fully, rubbing at his eyes, his face, and slouching to stay upright as he looks over to you. You give a small shake of your head in return.

“No. Just tired.” He nods a little, like this is the answer he was expecting. He looks at you for a long time, frowning still.

“You want some breakfast?” He asks quietly. You shake your head again. He stands and sits on the end of the couch by your feet. You like that it’s a big couch, because you curl up slightly and there’s plenty of room between you and him. He shifts a bit, and you can tell that he’s uncomfortable. He looks like he doesn’t know how to act around you.

You don’t want to be the one to break the silence, so you let it sit. It’s not even uncomfortable for you, you actually prefer that he not talk to you right now. You think you have a lot of things on your mind but none of them are coming into focus and it’s all just this mess of blurry thoughts.

The next time John talks he asks if it’s okay to turn the tv on and soon enough you’re watching shitty reality television. Some show about teenage trolls and their respective lusii getting into arguments. It’s kind of like this universe’s Jerry Springer, except it’s more interesting, because it’s all trolls.

It’s on for a while. You don’t pay much attention and John spends the majority of the first episode making himself something for breakfast. You catch the sound of your phone buzzing in the box but you ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.

John starts talking to you, starts up some stupid conversation about the show and you go back and forth with him for almost the entire episode about who is right, the troll or the custodian. Of course by the end of it the two seem happier there, and they hug it out, the troll cires a little bit.

You imagine that happening with Bro and it makes your stomach churn. You ask John to change the channel and he doesn’t question, he simply does it. 

You stand up and tell John you’re going to get a drink, you don’t want him to ask where you’re going, and you grab one thing out of your boxes on the way to the kitchen. You weren’t lying, really. You get into the kitchen and fill up a glass with water. The single item you grabbed from your box is opened you down one pill, then another. You force yourself not to think about Bro, and you’re halfway to the third when you feel a hand stopping your wrist.

You jerk away from it, John doesn’t let go, though, he holds your arm tightly as you flail and pull and tell John to mind his own goddamn business.

He doesn’t let go, though, and eventually he wrestles the drug from your hand and puts it back in the bottle, closing it and shoving it off to the side.

He hugs you through you yelling at him, he says every reassuring thing you’re sure he can think of but most importantly he tells you that you’re going to be okay. That he doesn’t want you to hurt anymore and this is hurting you.

You calm down about half an hour later, once the medicine you did manage to take kicks in and you’re relaxed more, sitting in the corner between some cabinets. You ignore the wetness on your cheeks and just stare at John while he looks like he wants to punch you. You don't even care he could punch you if he wanted, it wouldn't make you hate yourself less. 

He doesn't hit you though. He fumes for a few minutes and then starts talking. He tells you he's going to make you stop with the pills thing and you find yourself snorting at him. He sounds determined though. 

He sounds really determined. 

It makes your stomach do uncomfortable things, hearing him so determined to help you. 

He talks at you for what feels like a few hours before you mumble an agreement. You agree that you'll stop and he goes on about how it's going to go. 

Detox is a bitch. 

* 

It's been a few weeks since the drugs were all flushed out of your system, and without them to dull the world around you're hyperaware of every little thing going on with your body. You feel the tightness of the skin on your back from scars that healed tense, you notice every twitch your fingers give when they shake, and you definitely feel the feather touches that run over your shoulders and down your back. 

John did a pretty good job babying you through the detoxification and he did a damn good job of making sure you didn't sneak anything. 

Everything is clearer though, your memories are mottled but the sensations you do get are sharper than before. Nightmares are more prominent than they previously were. You no longer dream of becoming a bird, instead you dream of strange hands touching you and pulling you apart piece by piece and making you nothing more than a beating heart. 

"Are you okay?" John's voice pulls you from your thoughts, your eyes focus once more on the television across from the couch and you nod a little. 

"Yeah. I'm good, did I space out pretty bad?" 

"Pretty bad, yeah. I mean it wasn't like the big one but you were definitely off in another world." 

You nod a little bit. Where you're laying on the couch has you with your head resting on John's knees. He's still careful around you, particularly when he's making contact. He always asks and he respects the answers you give him. When he asked if he could touch your back you'd said yes, and found that him being gentle with the scars was comforting. You couldn't feel a few spots but it was nothing too serious. 

The worst you have from that whole ordeal is a traumatic experience to remember. 

John's amazingly respectful to the things that set you off. He makes a point not to say certain words or phrases, he keeps a lookout for certain scenes in movies. You're three weeks without a panic attack so you think he's doing good. 

You really aren't sure where you would be now if it weren't for him, really. If not for John you'd likely still be with Bro or Dirk right now. Or dead. 

You did tell him that that was a possibility as to your existence in a situation where he doesn't come and help you. He was a little upset by that, and told you that he would have come to help sooner if he could have. 

You try not to talk about it too much. 

You don't remember what you're watching, but you don't bother to ask. When the commercials end you'll figure it out. John continues to trace the burns on your back, and you watch the tv with little interest in the programs that play. 

It's comfortable silence that's made uncomfortable when John starts fidgeting. You don't bother to sit up, you act like you don't notice because you're pretty sure he just has to go to the bathroom or something and it would be too easy to just let him go. 

After a little while longer, when he hasn't asked you to move so he could go, you wonder what it really is he's all fidgety about. You decide that about then is when you should ask him what's on his mind. So you sit up next to him and wait a moment to make sure your original guess wasn't right, and when he doesn't move you shoot the question. 

"Seriously what the fuck has you fidgeting like a guilty puppy who peed on the carpet four times while the owners were out of the house?" 

He looks over at you, looking like he's thinking really hard about his answer. 

"Nothing. It's nothing." 

"Sure sure, now what is it, really?" you ask and cross your arms, relaxing back against the cushion. 

"Look it's just. It's a stupid thing I thought of and now it's like, stuck. In my head. Don’t worry about it.” Yes, because that’s encouraging. You stare at him a bit longer, hoping you can dig a hole through his dense as fuck skull and retrieve this information yourself.

“What?” He asks after a few long moments of staring. But you don’t relent, this fucker is hiding something and you want to know what it is!

“Look if it was nothing important you would probably have told me by now,” you reason, shrugging at him, “If I had to guess by the way you stopped being a twitchy weirdo the moment I got off you, it has something to do with me, which is extremely worrying, you know.”

“I know. Dave, look, it’s just… It’s not really something I can just up and do.”

“So it’s something you want to do.”

“Yes. Kind of? I mean I don’t know if I want to do it, but it’s been on my mind lately.”

“What is it?”

“Uh. Noth… W… Can. Can I kiss you?”

The questions throws you off. You’re out in left field and it all is lefter than that and all you can do for a few minutes is stare at him as he start to get twitchy again under your gaze. You think about it. A lot. It’s. Weird. It kind of seems sudden. It makes you uncomfortable in a way, and the thought of lips on you makes you remember things you wish you couldn’t and you find yourself shrinking back into the cushions, knees to your chest and you rest your face on them, looking at John out of the corner of your eyes.

He looks _mortified_ as if he just asked the president to sign his dick or something, and he refuses to look at you for a long time. Whenever he does, he looks like he’s going to say something, but it never comes out and he looks away again, his eyes darting around behind his glasses as he looks for words.

You keep thinking about it. You push past the terrible shit that happened, you push your mind in a different direction and you think about John, and the serious heart-boner you had for him when you guys were twelve. You think about how you two have changed and how you really don’t harbor the same feeling for him that you did then, you find it hard to imagine yourself harboring those feelings for anyone, really.

But all he wanted was a kiss, right? You force your head away from your knees and you look over to him. When he next turns to you and sees your head up he doesn’t look away immediately.

It’s just a kiss.

You open your mouth to answer, but the words don’t come from you either, and you swallow, nod instead. He asks if you’re sure. If you’re serious. You nod again.

There’s a long time of still silence that goes stale faster than beer and you wait for the longest time for him to just do it and get it over with. But he doesn’t move. So you do. You lean forward, just enough to close some distance and you squeeze your eyes shut.

You don’t see him move. The shift of the couch lets you know he’s moving too and you think it’s away before the direction changes, he moves closer. There’s pressure on your lips and it has your stomach twisting for it to stop stop _stop_ but you ignore it, you let John press his lips to yours in a kiss that’s barely even that. It’s simply lips pressed together. It makes your stomach clench and your eyes sting and he isn’t pulling away, why isn’t he pulling away?

You move back quickly, quicker than intended. Your forehead hits his on your way to get away and he jumps back rubbing his as you shove the heels of your hands into your eyes and stave off the burning. You focus on your breathing. You focus on the feeling of no one touching you.

John sits by as you work yourself down.

“Is that all?” You finally ask.

“Y… Yeah.” He says, but he’s lying. “That was all.”

He looks at you for a little longer, forcing himself not to frown in such a way it looks like he’s going to hurt himself.

You offer a nod, and you stand. “Right. Uh. I’m gonna go take a bath or something…” You gesture toward the bathroom, and he nods. You leave without any more words and you manage to hold back from grabbing your stomach and curling up into a ball until you get into the bathroom.

You just stay there for a while. You feel so stupid. You feel stupid for having a fucking kiss affect you that way. You hold yourself still, and you force yourself to breath even. You turn on the water in the tub and you rest your forehead on the cool ceramic of the rim and you breathe.

You breathe, and you pretend you’re okay for just one moment.

Because you’re supposed to be okay. You’re supposed to be okay, you’re supposed to be strong, and you’re not supposed to be scared of baby shit like kissing, it’s not supposed to make you want to throw up but it does.

It does but you don’t. Because throwing up would mean you lost.

Instead you force your mind to recognize the hurt look on John’s face, and you force your mind to see that he wanted more than that, and you tell yourself repeatedly that he wasn’t using you.

John would never use you.

Not like that.

But you know you’ll never be able to escape that feeling; the feeling like you’re just someone’s toy to do whatever they please with, or the feeling that you’re not truly wanted simply because you’re not the right carbon copy of the millions of carbon copies.

You won’t be able to get rid of these feeling because they’re burned into your mind and burns may heal but they leave scars behind.


End file.
